Back in July it was reported that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was having major reshoots done and that Tony Gilroy would be assisting Edwards on set, just as he had done with Godzilla. And then earlier this month, we caught wind that Gilroy was also supervising the edit of the movie, further hinting that Edwards was losing control.
Well eagle eyed viewers of the trailer released yesterday have noted that Gilroy has been given a screenwriters credit on the movie along with writer Chris Weitz.
https://twitter.com/antovolk/status/764013809526640640
This would suggest that Gilroy has had a big infulenence on the story for Rogue One, enough of an impact for the Writers Guild of America (WGA) to award him a screenwriting credit. For those who don’t know how it works, the WGA look at all the scripts written for a movie in what is called the arbitration process, and from that they determine which writer or writers contributed the most to a movie and award them the screenwriting credit. This would suggest that a lot of Gilroy’s work has made it into the final edit of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
It’s also interesting to note that Gary Whitta’s name is missing, who was the first screenwriter on the project. Also missing is the rumoured Christopher McQuarrie (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation), however he could have done un-credited re-writes which is not uncommon in Hollywood (J.J. Abrams got his start in the industry as an un-credited screenwriter on several projects).
From Lucasfilm comes the first of the Star Wars standalone films, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, an all-new epic adventure. In a time of conflict, a group of unlikely heroes band together on a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire’s ultimate weapon of destruction. This key event in the Star Wars timeline brings together ordinary people who choose to do extraordinary things, and in doing so, become part of something greater than themselves.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is set for release on December 16th 2016, with a cast that includes Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything), Diego Luna (Milk), Ben Mendelsohn (The Dark Knight Rises), Donnie Yen (Ip Man), Jiang Wen (Let the Bullets Fly), Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland), Alan Tudyk (Con Man), Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler), Genevieve O’Reilly (Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith) and Jonathan Aris (Sherlock).
Originally published August 12, 2016. Updated June 30, 2023.
